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Pediatricians: U.S. not doing enough to halt childhood lead poisoning

Kim Painter, Special for USA TODAY
Published 12:03 a.m. ET June 20, 2016

Aging paint remains a common source of lead poisoning for U.S. children, the American Academy of Pediatrics says in a new policy statement calling for full funding of clean-up efforts.(Photo: Heather Wines, for USA TODAY)

Despite dramatic declines in childhood lead poisoning over the past few decades, the United States is doing too little to prevent new poisonings, the nation’s leading group of pediatricians said Monday.

The statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published in the journal Pediatrics, comes at a time when lead is receiving renewed public attention, largely due to the apparent poisoning of thousands of children who drank contaminated water in Flint, Mich.

But the problem is more widespread, as a study published last week in the Journal of Pediatrics, made clear: it found six U.S. zip codes in which at least 14% of tested children had high lead levels in their blood.

The new policy statement updates doctors on what to do when they find such children. But it says finding and helping poisoned children addresses the problem too late, after irreversible brain damage has occurred. Lead poisoning is linked to declines in intelligence and problems with attention and behavior.

A child should not be “a canary in a coal mine,” signaling the presence of lead in a home or community, said Jennifer Lowry, a pediatrician who chaired the policy committee and is chief of toxicology at Children’s Mercy, Kansas City.

Instead, the statement said, federal, state and local governments should fully fund and implement programs to get lead out of homes, soil, water and consumer products. The biggest sources of lead exposure are household dust and soil contaminated by old lead-based paints, the group noted.

Lead poisoning declined sharply after lead gasoline, paint and plumbing were banned in the 1970s and 1980s. But old paint and pipes are common in homes and neighborhoods built before that era. Poor children living in old housing are most at risk.

“It shouldn’t take things like Flint to get the nation’s attention,” but largely as a result of that crisis, there are multiple bills before Congress to increase funding for lead clean-up programs, said David Jacobs, chief scientist at The National Center for Healthy Housing, a non-profit advocacy group.

The study published last week suggests the need is especially urgent in some areas. The nationwide study, based on 5 million blood tests conducted by Quest Diagnostics between 2009 and 2015, included children ages 5 and under. It found that 3% had blood lead levels of at least five micrograms per deciliter – a level that should trigger a long list of health actions for the child under guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and now the pediatrics academy.

The six communities where at least 14% of children were in that danger zone were Syracuse, Buffalo and Poughkeepsie in New York; York and Oil City in Pennsylvania and Cincinnati.

States with the most children with high lead levels included Minnesota (10.3%), Pennsylvania (7.8%), Kentucky (7.1%), Ohio (7.0%) and Connecticut (6.7%).

While such data is sobering, it doesn't tell the full story, because it doesn't include children with lower blood levels of lead, who also are at risk for reduced IQ and other harms, Lowry said: "There is no safe level. "

Despite the concern, the academy and CDC do not recommend testing all children for lead. Instead they recommend testing children at highest risk, including those who live in areas with high poisoning rates.